Yahoo Groups archive

QTR-Quadtone RIP

Index last updated: 2026-04-28 23:12 UTC

Thread

3880 ABW with carbon inkset -- smoother, sharper, deeper dmax, "color managed" on Win7

3880 ABW with carbon inkset -- smoother, sharper, deeper dmax, "color managed" on Win7

2015-06-05 by roark.paul@...

This setup is giving me more surprises. Who would have thought the Advanced B&W printing mode would make the best print?

Smoothness of a test strip might be subjective, but so far this ABW with the Eboni-6 setup (draft PDF at http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/3880-Eboni-6.pdf) (and probably any other high-K monotone) seems to be the smoothest print I've seen on a matte paper. It may be the driver is using only the smallest dots and maybe some different dithering pattern.

On Epson Hot Press Natural, I'm getting a 1.78 dmax, which is higher than the "color" Epson driver output and probably on a par with QTR.

The sharpness of the test strip is due to my use of a low res test strip combined with what looks like "next neighbor" up-res'ing to the native printer resolution. I could get the same look out of QTR by using PS to do a "next neighbor" image size increase to 360 dpi.

And ICCs (made via QTR Create ICC-RGB) work fine with Win7, PS CC and ABW.

FWIW

Paul



Re: [QuadtoneRIP] 3880 ABW with carbon inkset -- smoother, sharper, deeper dmax, "color managed" on Win7

2015-06-06 by Ernst Dinkla

Paul,

Reading this and your other recent thread it may be interesting to retry Qimage Ultimate again as the application to print from. The QTR ICC (RGB versions) (with ACV curves) remained compatible while Adobe got weak knees facing Apple. So did target printing. The extrapolation algorithms and smart sharpening have always been excellent and you can apply a print filter on the fly so print without the need for creating an extra file. The Qimage curves tool is not exactly my taste but sufficient enough for adapting the linearity in a print filter. Files are not touched in any sense.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

Dinkla Grafische Techniek
Quad, piëzografie, giclée
www.pigment-print.com
Show quoted textHide quoted text
On Fri, Jun 5, 2015 at 8:18 PM, roark.paul@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

This setup is giving me more surprises. Who would have thought the Advanced B&W printing mode would make the best print?


Smoothness of a test strip might be subjective, but so far this ABW with the Eboni-6 setup (draft PDF at http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/3880-Eboni-6.pdf) (and probably any other high-K monotone) seems to be the smoothest print I've seen on a matte paper. It may be the driver is using only the smallest dots and maybe some different dithering pattern.

On Epson Hot Press Natural, I'm getting a 1.78 dmax, which is higher than the "color" Epson driver output and probably on a par with QTR.

The sharpness of the test strip is due to my use of a low res test strip combined with what looks like "next neighbor" up-res'ing to the native printer resolution. I could get the same look out of QTR by using PS to do a "next neighbor" image size increase to 360 dpi.

And ICCs (made via QTR Create ICC-RGB) work fine with Win7, PS CC and ABW.

FWIW

Paul




Re: [QuadtoneRIP] 3880 ABW with carbon inkset -- smoother, sharper, deeper dmax, "color managed" on Win7

2015-06-06 by Myron Gochnauer

Paul,

It would be helpful if you included in the PDF a short discussion of how to keep the dilute Eboni in suspension. How often is it necessary to “agitate” the cartridges, and how do you do it? I know you’ve discussed this elsewhere, but it could be convenient to have it here as well.

Myron

Re: [QuadtoneRIP] 3880 ABW with carbon inkset -- smoother, sharper, deeper dmax, "color managed" on Win7

2015-06-06 by Paul Roark

Ernst,

I've done a bit more experimenting with the Epson driver on the 3880.

Note that it's the ABW mode that is doing something different from the usual driver -- smoother and better dmax.

With regard to smoothness, I can beat the ABW with QTR in the highlights (under a loupe and bright light) just because ABW is putting some LLK in there and I can use lighter inks with QTR.

The Epson ABW mode is smoother in the mid-values and shadows than either the Epson driver in color mode or QTR. I would be curious to see what Jon's curves and QTR can do with the 3880.

With respect to an old favorite (aside from its 200 gsm curl), the Premier Art Smooth Bright White dmax with QTR and ABW are the same even in next day read, and both are above the normal Epson driver. I suspect with some papers that can take a huge ink load QTR will be able to beat ABW. Obviously Arches comes to mind, but even high load inkjet papers ought to be able to take better advantage of the custom ink loads we can dial into QTR.

I am curious what ABW is doing to achieve the superior performance. It's a bit odd and just a happy coincidence that whatever they are doing works with a monotone inkset -- as long as it's installed in an Epson-compatible ink order.

I'm considering altering the 3880 Eb6 LK and LLK to the older recommendation -- 18% and 6% -- instead of the darker 30% and 9% I have in there now. I think that would cause the ABW higlights to match QTR's and also the shadows might be closer to gray gamma 2.2 even without an ICC. They currently dip a bit below where they ought to be in the shadows.

I might or might not wait for my fade test results of the all-Canon toner before putting it in the 3880. With the toner in the Y position, and with ABW being so good with this arrangement, having the ABW controls able to manipulate the toner and thus print tone somewhat might make the inkset even more appealing. I'm very curious how much variability I can get with the ABW mode controls. In the past I never liked the Epson Color controls levers.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com


Show quoted textHide quoted text
On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 2:32 AM, Ernst Dinkla ernst.dinkla@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Paul,

Reading this and your other recent thread it may be interesting to retry Qimage Ultimate again as the application to print from. The QTR ICC (RGB versions) (with ACV curves) remained compatible while Adobe got weak knees facing Apple. So did target printing. The extrapolation algorithms and smart sharpening have always been excellent and you can apply a print filter on the fly so print without the need for creating an extra file. The Qimage curves tool is not exactly my taste but sufficient enough for adapting the linearity in a print filter. Files are not touched in any sense.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

Dinkla Grafische Techniek
Quad, piëzografie, giclée
www.pigment-print.com

On Fri, Jun 5, 2015 at 8:18 PM, roark.paul@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

This setup is giving me more surprises. Who would have thought the Advanced B&W printing mode would make the best print?


Smoothness of a test strip might be subjective, but so far this ABW with the Eboni-6 setup (draft PDF at http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/3880-Eboni-6.pdf) (and probably any other high-K monotone) seems to be the smoothest print I've seen on a matte paper. It may be the driver is using only the smallest dots and maybe some different dithering pattern.

On Epson Hot Press Natural, I'm getting a 1.78 dmax, which is higher than the "color" Epson driver output and probably on a par with QTR.

The sharpness of the test strip is due to my use of a low res test strip combined with what looks like "next neighbor" up-res'ing to the native printer resolution. I could get the same look out of QTR by using PS to do a ";next neighbor" image size increase to 360 dpi.

And ICCs (made via QTR Create ICC-RGB) work fine with Win7, PS CC and ABW.

FWIW

Paul





Re: [QuadtoneRIP] 3880 ABW with carbon inkset -- smoother, sharper, deeper dmax, "color managed" on Win7

2015-06-06 by Paul Roark

Myron,

With the Eboni v.1.1, I've been agitating every 2 weeks. I think that is the same that Jon recommends for Peizo inks. In centrifuge tests the Eboni v. 1.1 performed almost exactly like the Epson K3 MK. (And it settles also.)

I remove carts to agitate them. I'm told some rock the entire 3880. I'm skeptical that is a good idea.

The Inkjetmall 3880 carts have baffles in them, so I'm not sure what is the most effective agitation motion. I also suspect those baffles may lower rate of settlement. A side to side motion would avoid the baffles from stopping the agitation action. Also, a rotation would cause the pigs at the bottom to get swirled up toward the top. So, some combination of those actions seems like a good idea.

Note that Eboni does not just fall out of suspension. It's been described as like a spring being compressed. The dispersion repulsion is not failing. It's just that the electronic "springs" get compressed by the weight of the particles, so that the particles are closer near the bottom and farther apart near the top. The bottom line, however, is that for consistency agitation is the solution.

When I have more experience with the 3880 I'll at least put in the PDF what I do (if it seems effective), but right now I don't have a precise approach.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com
Show quoted textHide quoted text
On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 7:47 AM, Myron Gochnauer goch@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Paul,

It would be helpful if you included in the PDF a short discussion of how to keep the dilute Eboni in suspension. How often is it necessary to “agitate” the cartridges, and how do you do it? I know you’ve discussed this elsewhere, but it could be convenient to have it here as well.

Myron


Re: [QuadtoneRIP] 3880 ABW with carbon inkset -- smoother, sharper, deeper dmax, "color managed" on Win7

2015-06-06 by David Kachel

I am curious what ABW is doing to achieve the superior performance.


I may have a clue. Remember a few months back, I told you about an odd occurrence when making my brown tone prints with OEM Epson inks?

For everyone else\u2026
I work in B&W, making heavily chocolate toned prints with Epson OEM inks. (I also print with aftermarket MK inks in various dilutions, on a different printer.)
I do this by putting a fill layer at the top of my stack, set to \u201csolid color\u201d, mode set to \u201ccolor”, hue 43, saturation 100, brightness 13.

Recently I had a problem with one particular print that forced me to resort to QTR on that printer, using the three gray inks plus M and Y as toners. I was able to reproduce my brown tone exactly with just these five inks. Something I plan to do as a matter of course from now on, when I use this printer and ink set for brown tone prints. Here is the reason for not continuing with what I have used in the past, and the point of this post:

A few months ago I had the MK ink cartridge in my 3880 (the printer with OEM inks in it) fail. It just stopped providing ink right in the middle of making a print. (Maybe the software failed. Don\u2019t know, it never happened again.) The two gray inks may have failed also. This led to the startling and quite annoying discovery that when I make a chocolate brown print, Epson\u2019s driver decides to put down a HEAVY layer of Cyan underneath the color I want. Throwing ink on my print that I do not want there and is not needed because I have already proven I can get that brown with QTR, three blacks, magenta and yellow. No cyan required.

Though it is possible a software failure made the Epson driver think that MK was in the C slot, I doubt it. I think that heavy cyan deposit is routine. I presume Epson engineers think this makes a smoother/sharper/somehow better print. It is possible similar logic was applied to the ABW routines.

So, there is no way to know whether or not, when using the ABW driver, it too is not throwing in some colors you did not tell it too, unless you have a similar occurrence, where ABW stops using MK. If you are using all black inks with the ABW driver, the result might be a better, smoother print, because the Epson driver is using the black ink you have in the C and LC slots when you think it is not. Sort of like having an ink or two set to follow the curve of K in the QTR driver.

I need a drink now\u2026


David Kachel

___________________

Artist-Photographer
Fine B&W Photographs

WEBSITE: www.davidkachel.com
BLOG: thetransparentphotographer.com
EMAIL: david@...

PO Box 173
Globe, AZ 85502
(928) 275-0925

Re: [QuadtoneRIP] 3880 ABW with carbon inkset -- smoother, sharper, deeper dmax, "color managed" on Win7

2015-06-06 by Myron Gochnauer

Thanks. I’ve attached your response to the end of the PDF, awaiting a new, expanded edition! 😊

Myron


On Jun 6, 2015, at 12:05 PM, QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com wrote:


Myron,

With the Eboni v.1.1, I've been agitating every 2 weeks. I think that is the same that Jon recommends for Peizo inks. In centrifuge tests the Eboni v. 1.1 performed almost exactly like the Epson K3 MK. (And it settles also.)

I remove carts to agitate them. I'm told some rock the entire 3880. I'm skeptical that is a good idea.

The Inkjetmall 3880 carts have baffles in them, so I'm not sure what is the most effective agitation motion. I also suspect those baffles may lower rate of settlement. A side to side motion would avoid the baffles from stopping the agitation action. Also, a rotation would cause the pigs at the bottom to get swirled up toward the top. So, some combination of those actions seems like a good idea.

Note that Eboni does not just fall out of suspension. It's been described as like a spring being compressed. The dispersion repulsion is not failing. It's just that the electronic "springs" get compressed by the weight of the particles, so that the particles are closer near the bottom and farther apart near the top. The bottom line, however, is that for consistency agitation is the solution.

When I have more experience with the 3880 I'll at least put in the PDF what I do (if it seems effective), but right now I don't have a precise approach.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com

On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 7:47 AM, Myron Gochnauer goch@unb.ca [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Paul,

It would be helpful if you included in the PDF a short discussion of how to keep the dilute Eboni in suspension. How often is it necessary to “agitate” the cartridges, and how do you do it? I know you’ve discussed this elsewhere, but it could be convenient to have it here as well.

Myron





Re: [QuadtoneRIP] 3880 ABW with carbon inkset -- smoother, sharper, deeper dmax, "color managed" on Win7

2015-06-06 by Paul Roark

David,

I think it's definitely the case the ABW is firing all colors - to make the OEM inkset smoother, I assume. It is a different way of doing that compared to the "color" mode, however. It's interesting that whatever strategy they took works for a monotone inkset. I'm just taking a guess that they are using way more of the smaller drops and light inks.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com
Show quoted textHide quoted text
On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 8:41 AM, David Kachel david@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

I am curious what ABW is doing to achieve the superior performance.


I may have a clue. Remember a few months back, I told you about an odd occurrence when making my brown tone prints with OEM Epson inks?

For everyone else…
I work in B&W, making heavily chocolate toned prints with Epson OEM inks. (I also print with aftermarket MK inks in various dilutions, on a different printer.)
I do this by putting a fill layer at the top of my stack, set to “solid color”, mode set to “color”, hue 43, saturation 100, brightness 13.

Recently I had a problem with one particular print that forced me to resort to QTR on that printer, using the three gray inks plus M and Y as toners. I was able to reproduce my brown tone exactly with just these five inks. Something I plan to do as a matter of course from now on, when I use this printer and ink set for brown tone prints. Here is the reason for not continuing with what I have used in the past, and the point of this post:

A few months ago I had the MK ink cartridge in my 3880 (the printer with OEM inks in it) fail. It just stopped providing ink right in the middle of making a print. (Maybe the software failed. Don’t know, it never happened again.) The two gray inks may have failed also. This led to the startling and quite annoying discovery that when I make a chocolate brown print, Epson’s driver decides to put down a HEAVY layer of Cyan underneath the color I want. Throwing ink on my print that I do not want there and is not needed because I have already proven I can get that brown with QTR, three blacks, magenta and yellow. No cyan required.

Though it is possible a software failure made the Epson driver think that MK was in the C slot, I doubt it. I think that heavy cyan deposit is routine. I presume Epson engineers think this makes a smoother/sharper/somehow better print. It is possible similar logic was applied to the ABW routines.

So, there is no way to know whether or not, when using the ABW driver, it too is not throwing in some colors you did not tell it too, unless you have a similar occurrence, where ABW stops using MK. If you are using all black inks with the ABW driver, the result might be a better, smoother print, because the Epson driver is using the black ink you have in the C and LC slots when you think it is not. Sort of like having an ink or two set to follow the curve of K in the QTR driver.

I need a drink now…


David Kachel

___________________

Artist-Photographer
Fine B&W Photographs


PO Box 173
Globe, AZ 85502


Re: [QuadtoneRIP] 3880 ABW with carbon inkset -- smoother, sharper, deeper dmax, "color managed" on Win7

2015-06-06 by David Kachel

I think it's definitely the case the ABW is firing all colors - to make the OEM inkset smoother, I assume. ; It is a different way of doing that compared to the "color" mode, however. It's interesting that whatever strategy they took works for a monotone inkset. I'm just taking a guess that they are using way more of the smaller drops and light inks.

Paul,

Well, smaller drops of lighter inks placed more closely together could explain some of this behavior, I suppose. All I know is that I want to decide what inks get placed on my prints, not Epson.
I wish these companies would have an epiphany and realize that when they need a photographer for consultation, the guy to go to is not some jackass in a NY studio shouting \u201cgreat, that’s great, give me more", while dancing around some anorexic model making silly faces.
There was a time when they would consult people like Ansel Adams. Now they go to Peewee Herman.


David Kachel

___________________

Artist-Photographer
Fine B&W Photographs

WEBSITE: www.davidkachel.com
BLOG: thetransparentphotographer.com
EMAIL: david@...

PO Box 173
Globe, AZ 85502
(928) 275-0925

Re: [QuadtoneRIP] 3880 ABW with carbon inkset -- smoother, sharper, deeper dmax, "color managed" on Win7

2015-06-06 by Roy Harrington

I don't see mention of the print resolution that is being used but I'd guess 2880 since that's
the best usually. Anyway on a 3880 printer at 2880dpi (really 2880x1440) there
is only one dot size -- Epson driver and QTR driver -- so I'd think its mostly a
matter of more inks and lighter inks being used.

Roy
Show quoted textHide quoted text
On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 11:31 AM, David Kachel david@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:


I think it's definitely the case the ABW is firing all colors - to make the OEM inkset smoother, I assume. It is a different way of doing that compared to the "color" mode, however. It's interesting that whatever strategy they took works for a monotone inkset. I'm just taking a guess that they are using way more of the smaller drops and light inks.

Paul,

Well, smaller drops of lighter inks placed more closely together could explain some of this behavior, I suppose. All I know is that I want to decide what inks get placed on my prints, not Epson.
I wish these companies would have an epiphany and realize that when they need a photographer for consultation, the guy to go to is not some jackass in a NY studio shouting “great, that’s great, give me more", while dancing around some anorexic model making silly faces.
There was a time when they would consult people like Ansel Adams. Now they go to Peewee Herman.


David Kachel

___________________

Artist-Photographer
Fine B&W Photographs


PO Box 173
Globe, AZ 85502





--
Roy Harrington
roy@...
www.harrington.com

Re: [QuadtoneRIP] 3880 ABW with carbon inkset -- smoother, sharper, deeper dmax, "color managed" on Win7

2015-06-07 by Roy Harrington

Well, yes, dithering is different on different drivers. But Epson color vs Epson ABW is unlikely to be
different. I expect just ink usage differences.
The one thing that is the same in all cases on the 3880 will be the weaving/interleaving. This mostly
affects banding issues. But since its in the printer everybody gets the same algorithms.

My gut feel is that once you have a decent dithering algorithm its not going to get much better.
Somewhat same with weaving -- Epson is probably better than QTR driver but that's only small printers.

Roy
Show quoted textHide quoted text
On Sun, Jun 7, 2015 at 3:04 AM, ernst.dinkla@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:


Roy,

There is no difference in the way the dots are laid down? Different print engines though if I am not mistaken, QTR based on the Gimp-print routines versus the Epson 3880 driver that must be more recent.


Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

December 2014 update, 700+ inkjet media white spectral plots






--
Roy Harrington
roy@...
www.harrington.com

Re: [QuadtoneRIP] 3880 ABW with carbon inkset -- smoother, sharper, deeper dmax, "color managed" on Win7

2015-06-07 by Paul Roark

I changed the 3880 setup to be a variable tone, with an all-Canon (blue and cyan) toner (75% clear base) in the Y position. Also, due to the dip in the ABW shadows of the last setup that used the 30% and 9% Eboni as LK and LLK, I switched to 18% and 6% (which were my original recommendation for K3 printers since the 18% Eboni closely matches Epson LK in density).

Now the ABW mode Lab L is very close to gray gamma 2.2. With the toner at the current density (just a bit lower than a typical light Epson ink) the ABW mode gives limited to useful print tone control via the ABW controls.

Interestingly, a PS curve that cuts the toner out completely until about 70% black is not warmer than the ABW with its controls at the warmest setting -- which would be at what would normally be seen as the coolest setting (blue toner in yellow ink position). So, if we assume that Epson always puts some Yellow in the ABW prints, even when it's supposed to be cool, then the use of the lighter inks is offsetting the amount of toner in the setup.

I've put some curves showing the distributions of Lab L and B for the ABW in its coolest and warmest settings plus an ICC with a PS curve in it that prints 100% carbon from 0 - (approx) 70% at http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/3880-Eboni-Carbon-Variable-Tone.pdf . This will probably turn into what I call the 3880 Eboni Variable Tone inkset.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com
Show quoted textHide quoted text
On Sun, Jun 7, 2015 at 9:46 AM, Roy Harrington roy@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Well, yes, dithering is different on different drivers. But Epson color vs Epson ABW is unlikely to be
different. I expect just ink usage differences.
The one thing that is the same in all cases on the 3880 will be the weaving/interleaving. This mostly
affects banding issues. But since its in the printer everybody gets the same algorithms.

My gut feel is that once you have a decent dithering algorithm its not going to get much better.
Somewhat same with weaving -- Epson is probably better than QTR driver but that's only small printers.

Roy

On Sun, Jun 7, 2015 at 3:04 AM, ernst.dinkla@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:


Roy,

There is no difference in the way the dots are laid down? Different print engines though if I am not mistaken, QTR based on the Gimp-print routines versus the Epson 3880 driver that must be more recent.


Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

December 2014 update, 700+ inkjet media white spectral plots






--


Move to quarantaine

This moves the raw source file on disk only. The archive index is not changed automatically, so you still need to run a manual refresh afterward.